The Ground That I Am Walking On
by Mystikat
Summary: The murder/suicide of a relationship. AUish. Puck/Rachel, Quinn, Finn. Warning: Features abortion with triple helpings of angst.


**Important Author's Note: **I dislike doing these at the beginning, as I'm sure no one reads them, but in case you do, you should know that this story contains _very _sensitive subject matter, and if you can't stomach even a reference to abortion, then _this is not for you_.

That said, I'd also like to share that this story was written with the intent to entertain, and not as an outlet for my political or moral views. It was also given a very tragic tilt because I thought that would be an interesting route to go, so I restate that I don't want anyone to take away any of this as a reflection of my beliefs. Which are private.

**Not So Important Author's Note: **Another LJ** puckrachel** prompt "After the abortion." Title taken from Maroon 5's "Harder to Breathe". I based this heavily on the first six episodes: Pilot, Showmance, Acafellas, Preggers, The Rhodes Not Taken, and Vitamin D, but it has a definite AU turn.

* * *

**The Ground That I Am Walking On**

Everything crashes down freshmen year; a series of events (girl thinks she loves boy, boy tolerates girl, they come together, something like love happens, or almost happens, before the condom breaks) that lead her right back to his bedroom weeks later. They sit side by side on his bed, and she talks, he doesn't. Not until she says she can't keep it.

Four words, that's it:

"I won't forgive you."

Her voice breaks on the, "I know."

Summer is two weeks away, she schedules it to happen right after the last day of school, sure that she wouldn't be able to keep it together if she had to see him, what she's going to do to him, and them.

(They rip into her, she lets them, and rips into him in doing so.)

Sophomore year, she's surprised to see him in the halls. It doesn't make sense that he wouldn't take the chance to transfer, if only to avoid her.

He sees her, smiles a smile she's never seen on him before, starts toward her and she can't help how her heart swells in her chest.

Only to collapse in on itself with a pop, when a burst of flavored ice collides with her face.

The first time Noah Puckerman gives Rachel Berry a slushie facial, she doesn't know to close her eyes and brace herself. She doesn't make that mistake again.

Everything crashes down her freshmen year of high school, but sophomore year is when the day to day struggle to survive the wreckage really begins.

**{&}**

He's different now, more than in just his daily torture of her (sometimes up to three times a day, so she keeps a surplus of clothes in her bag and locker now). He throws kids into dumpsters, shoves them into lockers, if the fire alarm goes off it's not because he pulled it; it's because he set a fire.

He's not Noah anymore, he doesn't let anyone call him that. He's Puck, just Puck.

He's nothing like that boy she knew.

She watches as he bulks up, throwing himself into sports and personal fitness, she watches as he goes through girl after girl (_do you use protection, Puck? Does it break on you? Do you care anymore? _He doesn't seem to), and watches as he terrorizes the school into a new world order.

And then she closes her eyes when she sees him coming toward her, cup in hand.

She's changed too, or just become a little less and more of who she was all at once.

Her days are filled with metaphors, not just excelling, but _perfecting_ her voice. (Someday she'll live among the stars, and escape the man who always pulls her back to earth.) She joins glee club, destroys it to rebuild it. It's easy to destroy when you need to, when you have no other choice.

She's getting better at forgetting, Puck's getting better at making her remember.

Part of her wants to go to him, pleading. Let it go, let _me_ go, there's an empty ache in me and I need you to fill it or just leave me alone.

She suspects they aren't enough for each other, anymore. If either allowed the other in, they would probably be shredded from inside out. They're both too broken; the shards cut.

_Please get sterilized._

But in the night, she knows she'd never ask him to leave. She needs the punishment, or she'd be crushed under the guilt of getting away with it.

He doesn't know it, but he's saving her from herself. Never once does she look at a razor.

The truth is, she's the one who can't let him go.

_Pretending he's beside me._

Her life, destroyed, is steadily built day by day on fantasies.

**{&}**

He watches her sing, not just now, but all the time. He stalks her like prey in the hallways, and follows her voice wherever it leads him, and sometimes he'll close his eyes and imagine her singing lullabies; she never does, never let it happen.

He doesn't hate her, but he hates what she's done. By the end of the day, it's the same thing.

He watches her sing with joy. He can't recall when she last had. He's getting better at forgetting everything she was to him.

At this moment, he hates her, so seemingly happy and innocent and full of dreams without him.

"_Hold on to that feeling."_

He walks out. _Don't worry, baby, I will._

**{&}**

She goes after Finn. She's tired of being alone, and she needs more now than what Puck gives her.

She needs an escape, and Finn Hudson is perfect, untouched and oblivious to the reality she feels daily - pressing on her, weighing her down. (The fact that he's Puck's best friend is just a bonus. She knows Puck watches her, let him watch _this_.)

"_You can never have him."_

(Quinn says it, and for a second she forgets Finn, thinks _I know_. There and gone, and then she's back in the game.

Only to have Puck remind her seconds later. _I know I know I know._

She'll never have her baby too, but she can't let herself care about this either.)

She tries to throw up, lies about why, Ms. Pilsbury says "When you're older," and Rachel feels too old listening to her talk.

Yeah, she already knew about her gag reflex (it wasn't a gift, not anymore), but that doesn't stop her from trying.

**{&}**

He has her shoved in a bathroom stall, her underwear in her mouth, and she's so relieved she could cry.

"'Girls want sex just as much as boys do?' I guess you'd know, baby. Do you miss me? Do you miss me being deep inside you, are you fucking other guys looking for it again? They'll know, baby. They'll get inside and you'll be so tight around them that they'd feel the scars from where the doctors scraped out my fucking kid and they'll know what you did. You gonna let your dirty little secret out, s'that gonna be your pillow talk?"

His hand on her belly, drifting down down _down_.

When he touches her, a rasping laugh escapes.

"God, baby, did you get wet for them too? When you let them inside? _Did you get off?_"

Her fingers are soft as they touch his jaw. Her eyes are wide open and hurt and vulnerable. He doesn't understand.

"I don't even know who you are now."

It's okay, she doesn't know either.

He exits the stall, washes his hands, leaves.

She puts on her panties, drenched with saliva, now mixing with what Noah always brought out in her, but Puck never has before.

She knows exactly one thing about herself in that moment, before she can rebuild, she has to destroy something.

And Rachel Berry doesn't leave a job unfinished.

**{&}**

_Quinn's pregnant. She's keeping the baby._

He has a moment, when all the sound in his head just stops, and the hallway is like a million voices screaming, when his world reverses and flips, where he almost asks Finn if Rachel put him up to this. She wouldn't, he _knows_ she wouldn't, but, shit, he wishes she would because this is just too cruel.

It's happening again.

_She's keeping the baby._

He confronts Quinn, and she may be keeping it, but she's still just another girl determined to keep him from his kid.

He goes to Rachel's after school, knowing that Tuesdays are the Misters Berry's date night. She lets him in, like she always has (always will).

"Quinn's pregnant. She's keeping the baby."

Other people might automatically assume that the baby is Finn's on this information alone. Rachel knows better.

"Congratulations," she murmurs, beginning to turn away. "You're finally getting what you want, aren't you?"

"You don't know what you're talking about." He grabs her arm, pulls her toward him. "I fucking wanted _our_ baby, Rachel. I wanted my girl to give me a family and stay with me. I wanted to be man enough for you. But you and Quinn, you fucking bitches, think you're better off without me, without the baby. If either of you gave me the chance, I could be that man."

_A man would have stayed with me._ She doesn't say it.

"You know what, _baby_, at least I have a fucking chance now. Because I'm not making the same mistake I made with you, and you'll see how bad you fucked up when I show you what kind of father I'll be."

He towers over her, and she knows exactly what he's going to say, she closes her eyes and braces for impact.

"I know that Quinn's already a better mother than you could ever be."

When he walks out the door she just stares at the wood paneling for a while.

Maybe he expected to hurt her.

She's not hurt, she's _angry_.

And she's done.

**{&}**

Two days late, Puck joins glee club. She ignores him, waits for the solo that should be hers, that she _needs_ right now.

When she doesn't get it, she leaves. She doesn't come back.

**{&}**

"_I would have tortured you if the roles were reversed you know."_

"_I know." Her voice is steady, sure. Not so broken anymore._

Later, she gives Quinn some pamphlets on adoption, because it's Puck's turn now.

It's time to rebuild.


End file.
